Cities around the world are dealing with the compounding challenges of geohazards, aging infrastructure, and climate change. This manifests as issues such as leaky sewer pipes, storm flooding, and geotechnical failures (e.g., sinkholes and landslides). Many of these issues are related to the subsurface environment that plays many critical roles for cities (e.g., space for water and energy supply, communication systems, sewers, and drainage) but for which there is a lack of real-time information. Moreover, communities that are socioeconomically disadvantaged and/or of racial minorities have been more exposed to these environmental hazards.

The project (2022-24) funded by NSF CIVIC will leverage existing telecommunication fiber-optic infrastructure that is nearly ubiquitous in cities as a novel subsurface environmental sensor network in Pittsburgh PA. The goal is to identify certain geohazards and/or infrastructure issues such as landslides, leaking sewer pipes, or poor drainage.

 

 

Map of fiber-optic cables used for geophysics sensing

 

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